Black and grey realism tattoo of three butterflies with shaded wings and a line of script, on the side of a torso above the hip.

Three butterflies and script on the ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

Three butterflies with detailed wing patterns and soft grey shading sit on the side of the torso, with a line of cursive script running between them. The butterflies vary in size and angle, creating a sense of movement from the upper right down to the lower left. The image is in black and grey with a plain background and the subject filling most of the frame.

Realism Lettering Ribs Butterfly Script Quote Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wind backed to the north-east on the Tuesday, and Dilys Pardoe stopped pretending the Aurelia would be ready for the spring regatta. She sat on an upturned crate in the sail loft with the mainsail spread across the boards like a dropped flag, counting reef points twice because her hands needed something to do.

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"You can't shift the wind, Nan," Owen said from the doorway. He had frost on his hood and a bacon roll he had clearly been told not to bring up the stairs.

"No, love. Your grandad said that every time a jib blew out. Then he went and cut a new one anyway."

She had the old tin on the bench, the one with the painted ladies in it, four of them dried flat under a sheet of glassine. Ronan had caught them off the harbour wall the summer they came over from France on a southerly, and he had pinned the first to the loft beam for luck. It was still there, a small brown cinder above the door, gone thin as tissue.

Dilys unpicked the damaged panel one stitch at a time while Owen held the lamp. The cloth was tougher than it looked, and older than Owen. When the last seam gave, she laid the new panel beside it, cut from a bolt Ronan had bought the year before he died and never had the nerve to use. "Hold that taut," she said, and passed him the palm. He pushed the needle through without being asked twice, and the thread ran true. By Saturday the Aurelia would go out with a fresh corner, and somewhere in the weave, under the cloth where nobody would see it, Dilys had stitched the painted lady's wing into the seam.